The Prisoner of Heaven

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What to expect

'This is is explicitly, and joyously, a book about books, about what can be learned from them and what is lost when they are lost' GUARDIAN

'Full of stylish writing, Gothic atmosphere and love letters to 19th-century novels' WASHINGTON POST

Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife, Bea, have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a a mysterious figure with a porcelain hand enters the Sempere bookshop, threatening to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades.

His appearance plunges Fermín and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s - the early days of Franco's dictatorship and the very heart of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

The Prisoner of Heaven is a rich, labyrinthine tale of love, literature, passion, and revenge set in a dark, gothic Barcelona, in which the heroes of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game must contend with a nemesis that threatens to destroy them.

Read by Peter Kenny

Critics Review

Zafón combines sincere engagement with genre tradition, with clever touches of the literary post-modern . . . This is explicitly, and joyously, a book about books, about what can be learned from them and what is lost when they are lost
Guardian
Full of stylish writing, Gothic atmosphere and love letters to 19th-century novels
Washington Post
The story has heart, menace, torture, kindness, cruelty, sacrifice, and a deep devotion to what makes humans tick . . . The Prisoner of Heaven moves like a bullet train. There are few stops along the way, and the end of one section jumps headfirst into the next, leaving you no choice but to leap and not stop running
New York Journal of Books
The Prisoner of Heaven is the third part of the story and, like the first, is narrated by Daniel Sempere. But it too contains stories within stories, and the real narrative here belongs to the irrepressible Fermín Romero de Torres . . . Zafón's characters and dialogue are as lively and full-blooded as ever
Observer
There is an air of magical realism to Zafón's tales. The prose is robust and the dialogue rich with smart irony. But mostly, reading Zafón is great fun
Miami Herald
A deep and mysterious novel full of people that feel real . . . This is an enthralling read and a must-have for your library. Zafón focusses on the emotion of the reader and doesn't let go
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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